


Last Days

by ununquadius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Gen, Hospital, Love, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-07-31 20:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20121403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ununquadius/pseuds/ununquadius
Summary: Death. It isn’t something she thought that could happen to her. Of course, she knows she will die one day, but she didn’t think it would be so soon. And how will she tell Draco the news? How will she tell Scorpius?This is a sneek peek at the last days of Astoria's life, centered in her illness and death.





	Last Days

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank the mods for organising this fest and to my beta, weaselywench, for the quick and amazing work.
> 
> This fic is inspired by in real life facts.

Death. It isn’t something she thought that could happen to her. Of course, she knows she will die one day, but she didn’t think it would be so soon. And how will she tell Draco the news? He does know about her illness; they discussed it when she was pregnant, and she had to decide if she should take the risk or not. Draco wanted her to abort, but she couldn’t do it. She wanted that little nut that was growing inside her. It had gone well, after all. The baby was healthy and so was she. 

The illness was supposed to stay at bay. A few potions every month should have cornered it. But it is a tough one. It has reappeared, and this time… this time the Healers say that there isn’t hope. A year. Maybe two or three if she is lucky. No more. 

She chokes on the sob that is threatening to escape her. How will she tell Scorpius? He is just eleven years old. He can’t lose his mother now. Can’t the illness wait until he is seventeen or eighteen? Then he won’t need her as much. Then she can die. Tears run freely down her cheeks. 

She gets up from the park bench she has been sat at and looks for a place to Apparate home. She has to ready herself to tell her family.  


* * *

“But there must be something we can do!” Draco says for the hundredth time. 

She has told it just to him, still unsure of how to break the news to Scorpius. They are in their bedroom; Draco is sat on the bed, paler than usual, and she is in front of him, in her vanity chair. 

“There isn’t, love.” She can hear the sadness in her voice. “The Healers say that I can take potions to make it less painful, but we can’t stop it.”

“But…” She sees her own despair in his eyes. Yesterday, he looked happy and confident, and just a few minutes ago Astoria’s words destroyed everything, reducing him into a wretched shadow of himself. 

“You have to take care of Scorpius.” It is the most important thing. She is condemned, but Scorpius isn’t; he has all his life ahead. Draco needs to understand that he is going to be alone from this year on, and that Scorpius will need him the most. 

“I’m not going to abandon him, Tori.” The nickname brings memories to Astoria’s mind of those first days when they started to court, when the fear about what their parents might say made their relationship more exciting, and memories of later on, of their marriage, of the days when they tried and tried to get pregnant until they finally did it, of their life together as a family of three, and a cat that Scorpius insisted was a Malfoy, too. She had everything, and now it is being stolen from her. She won’t be there when Scorpius hits puberty; when he begins to wonder about his future; when he falls in love for the first time; and when he suffers from his first broken heart. She won't be there to see Draco get old, to mock him for his wrinkles and grey hairs, to see their grandchildren running around the manor. “Tori?”  
She looks up. So caught up in her spiralling mind she has forgotten Draco is there and they are speaking. She nods and says good night. Maybe tomorrow she’ll wake up and realise that all this is a nightmare.  


* * *

Scorpius takes the news as something that isn’t too serious, as something fixable, as if Astoria has a cold and not a terminal illness. But how can he take it seriously when he is a child, protected from the evils of the world? 

She tries to enjoy the little time she has ahead until the illness gets worse, until all she can do is lie in bed, whinging about the pain. They go to Diagon Alley to buy Scorpius’s school materials. They joke about what Hogwarts House he will be in. They have ice-creams and lovely days in London, the countryside, and the gardens. They play Quidditch together, although she hates it. 

Then, when it’s just Draco and her, they make love tenderly or roughly, depending on their mood and how they feel about the universe. They fight, cry, and go into feverish reassurances of eternal love and magical cures. All is going to be fine is Draco’s favourite comment. Astoria both hates it and finds it calming. 

In the moments that she has for herself, that’s when she allows herself to be the most afraid. When she wonders what there is after, if there’s something at all, if it’ll hurt; how many years she has ahead, and prays to whomever is listening that she doesn’t leave her son too soon. Other times, she does what she has always wanted to do and has never dared: going to that shop in Knockturn Alley, trying new foods and drinks, or Apparating to places she loves and wants to see.  


* * *

She doesn’t know if the potions are really better than the pain. When she drinks them, she wishes she hadn’t because the nausea is too strong and she spends hours with her head bent in the toilet. When she doesn’t drink them, she has to face Draco’s frown and a pain so strong she has to clench her teeth not to cry. On the good days, she feels weak and only has energy to talk for a few hours or read for a while. During the school holidays, she tries her best to be as she used to: happy, cheerful, sarcastic, but she can see the worried glances Scorpius sends her and Draco, and later, at night, Draco tells her that Scorp keeps asking if she’s going to get better. 

She hates people. She can’t stand her parents, the Malfoys and her sisters, and brothers-in-law telling her how brave she is. As if she has any other option! Nobody asked her if she wanted to face the illness. Nobody realises that she isn’t brave for fighting it. Are they brave for taking Pepper-Up potions when they have a cold? Is she going to be a coward, someone unworthy of their worshipping, when she finally loses the fight and dies? Are the heroes only those who survive their terminal illnesses? She wants to curse them.  


* * *

It’s May when the Healers decide that she stay in St Mungo’s; she’ll be better there, they’ll help her faster. Scorpius is thirteen years old. Too young to being an orphan. 

Scorpius enters the room with big, scared eyes the first time Draco brings him. Wide, grey as storm clouds, and as the clouds, ready to let out an angry rain of tears. She hugs him and tells him over and over how much she loves him, and her heart shutters when she can’t promise him that she won’t die. 

He seems to accept it over the next few weeks. He stays at the Manor with Draco, and goes to Hogwarts by Floo everyday and then back home and to hospital. They make the hospital room their home away from home. There are fresh-cut flowers in the windowsill, a little pile of books in the bedside table, and Scorpius’s homework scattered all over the sofa. 

“Why don’t you both go somewhere and do something fun?” she says one hot morning in July. 

Scorpius doesn’t have the distraction of school anymore, and it pains her to see him locked up in hospital all day. 

“And what about you?” Draco asks. 

“I’m fine here, but I need you two to have fun and then come here and tell me about all the things you did. I can’t stand another conversation about what’s in The Prophet or about how Healer Jones and Healer Webber are secretly in love. Please.”

From that day on, they take turns, one day is Draco and Scorpius’s day at the hospital and the next it’s the turn of the Greengrass or the Malfoys. That way, Scorpius can forget for a day about his dying mother, and she gets to enjoy the story of what he and her husband did for fun. She knows Draco hates it, but it seems to cheer up Scorpius a little, so he doesn’t complain. 

Then, the bad days come. It’s August and the heat is too much, even inside the hospital. Astoria feels uncomfortable all the time, weak, and she sleeps more than ever. Some time in the second week of the month, she doesn’t open her eyes anymore, although she’s still breathing weakly.  


* * *

Draco can’t take his eyes from his wife, lying in the hospital bed, still, with a layer of sweat covering her forehead, and her mouth crooked in a grimace. He’s sure she’ll die if he looks away. So he keeps his eyes on her chest, making sure it rises with each pained breath. 

Scorpius is curled up on the sofa next to him. He had fallen asleep with his head on Draco’s lap, and right now, he’s the only thing that keeps Draco whole. He can’t break down. He had promised that to Astoria. 

He doesn’t know what it is that makes him realise that it will be over soon. He puts his son’s head on a cushion and gets up. Astoria’s hands are cold in his, her heartbeat weak. A few minutes later he stops listening to her heart, to her breath, and her chest doesn’t rise anymore.

He lets a sob escape his lips.

“Is Mum…?” a scared voice asks from behind him.

He turns around and hugs Scorpius. From now on, they will only have each other.

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed some of Astoria's thoughts from my cousin, who was diagnosed with breast cancer (she's fine now!) and from my brother, who died of cancer almost four years ago.


End file.
